


Trust

by AutisticWriter



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types
Genre: 20th Century, Acceptance, Anxiety, Blood, Body Image, Character Study, Chest Binding, Coming Out, Fainting, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gender Dysphoria, Headcanon, Illnesses, Infidelity, Menstruation, Misgendering, Multi, One Shot, Pain, Period Typical Attitudes, Platonic Relationships, Sanitary Towels, Trans Male Character, Transgender George Smiley, Transphobia, Trust, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 22:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9627488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutisticWriter/pseuds/AutisticWriter
Summary: George Smiley is transgender. He doesn’t have a problem with it, but it would be nice if the rest of 20th Century Britain thought the same thing.





	

There were a lot of things people didn’t know about George Smiley. But there was only one thing about George that he deliberately kept from people, as he knew they would either think he was insane or just very strange, and he didn’t want to deal with their judgmental reactions.

He hated that he needed to be so wary, but his paranoia was unfortunately justified. After all, the people of Great Britain had never really supported the transgender community.

*

No one knew George by any other name than George Smiley. For as long as he could remember, George was never called ‘Georgina’; he was always just George. Of course, they still used female pronouns. Well, the teachers did; the students accepted his identity as a boy and called him one. The boys initiated him into their group and the girls avoided him just like the other boys, and that was when George knew he was truly accepted amongst his peers.

His parents were excellent too; they didn’t understand why George was so adamant that he was male, but they never challenged him or made him wear dresses, and used male pronouns to keep George happy. George often wondered if his mother had secretly always wanted a boy. That would certainly explain why she was so accepting of him.

His grandparents were much less accepting, as were most adults he met. They may have called him George, but they were obsessed with him looking and acting female, much to George’s distress. His grandmother constantly tried to persuade him to swap his shirts and trousers for dresses, and would simply tut and shake her head when George refused. He was told again and again that he would never find a man if he dressed like a boy, and, had he been more extroverted, George surely would have screamed at them and tried to explain that he was a boy, and that he didn’t want to ‘find a man’.

But, as he was always quiet and reserved, George just ignored them, and would only give into his anger when he was alone in his bedroom; he would punch and kick the walls and grit his teeth to stop himself crying whilst telling himself over and over again, ‘I’m a BOY’. He always hated having to put up with such negative attitudes, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it.

*

Every morning, George would get up and begin his routine. In front of the bathroom mirror, he put on his binder, feeling tension (as he felt his lungs compress) and relief (as he saw his chest flatten) at the same time as he forced the thing to lie across his chest. It was makeshift (Ann helped him make it; she was a lot better at needlework than George), but it still worked very well.

Binding hurt, but he got used to it. Well, he never really got used to it, but he found it possible to ignore the discomfort and outright pain it caused. Packing was a lot simpler; a rolled pair of socks tucked down the front of his Y-fronts was never a real issue.

His clothes were from the men’s department, and were adapted to fit his body shape. Being on the chubby side had always worked to his advantage; the fat under his skin helped to hide his curves and gave him an excuse to wear baggy clothes which further disguised his body shape.

When he was dressed, George would always look at himself in the mirror. He didn’t look quite as masculine as he would have liked – his jaw wasn’t angular enough, his shoulders were far too rounded, and he was annoyingly short – but this was the best he could do. Once he was finished, George would go back into the bedroom, where Ann, sensing his anxiety, would always give him a kiss and reassure him that he looked wonderfully handsome.

It was at times like that when George wondered what Ann saw in him. When they first met, back when they were both in their early twenties, he was frankly amazed that Ann ever even accepted his proposal of a date. She was wonderful, and didn’t overreact in the way George had feared when he told her that he was trans (not that he knew the correct term for it back then). Of course, George still being down on his records as female meant that they couldn’t get married, but that didn’t bother Ann either. She still took his surname and everyone knew them as George-and-Ann, so they were still effectively a married couple.

People often asked them if they were going to have children. Ann would smile politely and tell them that they ‘weren’t planning on it’, whilst George stared at the floor and begged himself not to go red. Because, of course, them having children wasn’t just unlikely; it was biologically impossible. But, again, Ann was wonderful, and insisted that she honestly didn’t mind, and that she didn’t want children anyway. She seemed to be telling the truth, but George sometimes wondered if she was lying to make him feel better.

*

When he was twenty six, George got his name changed on his permanent records to ‘George Smiley’. That infuriating ‘F’ was still there, but he knew there was nothing he could do to change that. Still, being officially called George made things a lot easier, and he didn’t have to worry that people were going to call him Georgina.

Ann was the only person who knew all of this – apart from Control of course. Control knew everything about everyone. George wasn’t sure if he even actually told Control; Control probably worked it out by himself. And Ann and Control, despite knowing George was trans, never once misgendered him. George could never quite explain just how much that meant to him.

It was almost impossible to explain, but being misgendered felt... awful. It made him extremely anxious and rather angry at the same time, and sometimes made him feel like he needed to hurt himself just to cope with the internal pain it caused him. He wasn’t sure why any of this happened; all he knew was that it made him feel truly awful, and he always dreaded it happening.

*

Jim was the third person who George ever told. He hadn’t planned to, though. It was an accident.

George was ill. He had decided to act like an idiot and go to work despite having a raging fever. To cut a long and very disastrous story short, George ended up collapsing at London Station. When he came around, he was lying on his back on the floor of Jim’s office, shivering, with something wet on his forehead. He quickly realised that it was a wet handkerchief. And then, with a rush of dread, he realised that he was only wearing his binder and Y-fronts.

“Sorry about this, George,” Jim said when he saw he was awake, smiling and speaking in a tone George would expect to hear from a doctor. “But I needed to cool you down. Your temperature is dangerously high.”

When George tried to shuffle into a sitting position, Jim placed a hand on his shoulder and gently but firmly pushed him back down to the floor.

“Don’t move,” he said. “I don’t want you fainting again.”

“I’m fine—”

“You are not fine, George,” Jim said, sighing. “Why else do you think you fainted? You should never have come to work.”

George smiled. “You’re not my mother, Jim.”

Of course, Jim was right. He felt dreadful, and he should never have bothered to get out of bed this morning. But the longer George kept Jim talking; he hoped that would distract Jim from bringing up his binder. He surely must have noticed George was wearing it; it was rather difficult to miss, after all.

“George, I have to ask,” Jim said, and George felt his heart rate double. “What are you wearing around your chest? Is it a bandage?”

George saw a fleeting look of fear cross Jim’s face as he obviously wondered if George was hurt. Resisting the urge to sigh, George took a deep breath, and prepared himself for what he was about to say.

“No, it’s not a bandage. It’s known as a chest binder,” George said, trying his hardest to keep the anxious tremor out of his voice. “It’s designed to flatten your chest.”

And, as Jim stared at him with a puzzled expression, George proceeded to tell him everything. He told Jim about being transgender, he told him about the horrible feeling he got when he was misgendered, he told him about binders and packers and him and Ann not actually being married, due to the fact he was considered female on his personal records. And then he mentioned that he was only the third person to know all of this.

And, to his immense and almost overwhelming relief, Jim had no problem with it at all. Their relationship was the same it had always been, and Jim didn’t judge him.

*

When he was thirty five, George had a mastectomy. It was an awkward affair (he could still see the expression on the surgeon’s face as he realised it was George, not Ann, who was his patient as they both sat in his office; and spending his entire time in hospital being called ‘Miss Smiley’ was even worse), but the results were better than he could have imagined.

Not having to bind everyday was wonderful. He had forgotten what it felt like to have a flat chest and be able to breathe fully at the same time. It left him with scars across his chest, but they faded over the years. And it also meant he didn’t have to worry about repeating his experience with Jim, as there was no binder to ask questions about.

But, without a doubt, the best thing about having the chest surgery was the way it lessened his anxiety. He always felt horribly nervous about his body and how it didn’t look masculine enough, and the surgery took a huge amount of that fear away. George didn’t understand the distress having breasts caused, but he was still relieved that he no longer had to go through it.

*

George didn’t hate his body, but he certainly hated many things about it. Some things were simply because they didn’t look masculine enough (such as his jaw, shoulders and hips, which were far too round and feminine looking and made him very anxious when he saw them in the shower), but others were irritating from a far more practical angle.

The worst thing of all was menstruating. He knew from Ann that women found their periods annoying and painful, but it was even worse for transgender men. Having to wear a bulky, uncomfortable belt and sanitary towel made him incredibly self conscious that people might be able to see it, and carrying the pads around with him was embarrassing. His period was also very painful; the cramps made him feel sick and he often had to press a hot water bottle against his stomach just to relieve the pain enough that he could function.

The rest of his menstrual cycle was not much better; George detested the mood swings and hormone problems he got in the week before his period started. There were times when he barely managed to suppress bouts of anger, and there was many an evening when he would spend hours fighting back tears. The unpredictable nature of his body during that week drove George mad, mainly because it threatened to destroy his usually calm, controlled behaviour.

Basically, he hated his whole reproductive system, and George knew why. It was yet another reminder that he was different, that he wasn’t a ‘real man’.

*

Just like with Jim, George never planned to tell Connie about him being transgender. He only came out to her out of pure necessity.

It was all because of his damned period. George usually had a very regular cycle, but this time it came three days early.

As he sat in a meeting with Control, George felt a twinge of dull pain in his lower back. He shifted in his seat in an attempt to relieve the pain, but it didn’t help. Over the next ten minutes, the pain intensified, until his entire lower back ached in a terribly familiar way.

George tried to ignore what was his body was doing, but he was forced to admit that it was really happening when he felt his stomach cramp and his underpants began to feel damp. His heart rate increasing, George tried to concentrate on what Control was saying and not on the blood soaking through his underwear.

Control gave him a strange look, obviously sensing that something was wrong, but he didn’t mention it. For that, George was very grateful. His stomach cramped again, a sharp, stabbing pain that felt like a knife was piercing his abdomen.

Once the meeting was over, George stood up and glanced at the chair. Thankfully, the pale grey leather was not stained, so the blood had not yet soaked through his trousers. Still, he didn’t want it to have the chance to. So George picked up his bag and hurried to the toilets.

It was when he was in the toilets that he realised that he had no sanitary towels. Of course he didn’t; he only carried them when he was menstruating, for he hated the things and didn’t want to see them whenever he opened his bag. This was the first time he realised his usual technique was flawed.

In desperation, George stuffed several sheets of toilet paper into his underwear, not wanting the blood to go everywhere. He flushed the toilet and went and washed his hands, which he found were trembling. He hated that he was getting so stressed, but he felt his anxiety was justified, because he knew he was going to have to ask someone for a sanitary towel – and surely the only way to do that would be to come out to them. His only experiences with coming out had been positive, yet George still worried about what might happen, and he was scared someone might physically assault him if they found out.

Still, despite his fears, he didn’t really have a choice. So, taking a deep breath, George dried his shaking hands and opened the toilet door. He looked up and down the deserted corridor, faintly able to hear the Mothers’ typewriters clattering, wondering where he should go. A wave of relief swept over him when he saw Connie turn the corner, and George felt like he could actually breathe again.

“Connie!” he hissed.

She turned her head as she heard him and smiled. “George!”

Wiping his sweaty forehead with one hand, George beckoned her over with the other. Connie smiled, obviously thinking he was up to something, and came over.

“What’s the problem, George?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

George swallowed and pushed his glasses further up his nose. “I need to ask you a favour.”

Connie frowned and put her hand on his shoulder. “Is something wrong? You look a bit flushed.”

“Do I?” George said, trying to sound nonchalant despite being able to feel his cheeks radiating heat. “Nothing’s wrong, not really, Connie. I just need to borrow something.”

“Ask away,” Connie said.

“Well, I was wondering if... do you have any sanitary towels I could borrow?” he asked, slipping his hand inside his shirt to rub his cramping abdomen.

“Sanitary towels? Yeah, I... I think I do, George.” Connie dug her hands into her handbag and rummaged around inside it. After a few seconds, she pulled a large, thick, wrapped towel and passed it to him.

George ignored the confused look on her face and ducked back into the toilets, mumbling, “Thank you, Connie. I’ll explain later.”

And he did. Despite the anxiety it caused him, George met Connie in a local cafe at midday and told her everything over a pot of not-so-nice tea. When he had finished, George was amazed to see Connie smiling.

“I’m not too surprised, George,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze. “I did wonder... you know what? It doesn’t matter. You’re the same man you’ve always been to me.”

George smiled, glad that he had been able to trust Connie. “Thank you.”

Connie grinned and poured more tea into her teacup.

“It’s nothing. Who else have you told?” she asked.

“Only Ann, Control and Jim,” George said. “Well, I’m not sure if I actually told Control...”

“I know what you mean,” Connie said. “That man somehow finds out everything, even the secrets we keep very well hidden.”

George nodded; in one sentence, Connie really had described Control perfectly.

“So you really don’t mind?” he asked.

“Of course I don’t,” Connie said, taking his hand and giving George the warmest smile.

When he got home, George made himself a hot water bottle, took an aspirin tablet and went to bed, hating how ill his period made him feel.

*

They were both nearing forty when Ann first had an affair. It hurt George in ways he didn’t understand, and he found his low self esteem telling him that it wasn’t Ann’s fault, and that you couldn’t really blame her for wanting to be with a ‘real man for once’. When George asked her if this was true in a fit of anger, Ann insisted that wasn’t the case, and that she was sorry, that it was just a stupid mistake. But, of course, it happened again.

George often wondered why he stayed with someone who cheated on him. After all, that wasn’t really in his nature. He supposed it was because he couldn’t bear the thought of trying to find another partner, and going through the whole ‘coming out to her as transgender’ thing all over again – not to mention his constant worries about how he would never find anyone else.

And, of course, he also loved Ann deeply, something that her multiple affairs never managed to stop.


End file.
